Maxed out

The naked truth in the Holy Land

Sick as a dog wouldnt adequately describe my current state of unwell being. The only times Zippy the Dog has been sick it just seems to involve horking up great bowls of twig soup or bits of half digested plastic. This is much worse.

I didnt know how sick I was until I read the start to this weeks column. This is what I wrote.

"With so much killin going on in what was once called the Holy Land, Ive been wondering  perhaps my tribute to Easter  exactly what Jesus would make of things if he were to come again, as has been prophesized every year since his first premature departure. Chances are hed either be cut down by some overzealous Israeli tank jockey or blown to smithereens by a Palestinian suicide bomber before he got a chance to preach his message of peace and brotherly love."

"Would Jesus Jr. take a good look around, throw up his hands, shake his head and say something like Yo, Pops. Beam me back up. No sign of intelligent life down here. Or would the Second Coming be smart enough and powerful enough to craft some kind of wild solution to what seems an insoluble problem?"

"If I were Jesus: The Sequel  and whos to say Im not  this is what Id do."

This is when I knew I was really, really delusional and probably shouldnt go any further. But for the morbidly curious, heres what came next.

"What Id do is mutter some magic words and make all the clothes on Earth, well, at least all the clothes in the Middle East, disappear. Alakazam! Nothin but nekkid Jews and Muslims wandering the wilderness."

"Now, Ive never actually been to a nudist camp, being a modest kind of guy who never, ever wants to experience second degree sunburn on his lower cheeks and who doesnt even like to consider how excruciating a sunburn on Little Max might be. But I hear the whole experience is very levelling, in a social stature sort of way. You know, the clothes make the man syndrome. So I figure why not give it a try? Maybe it would have the same impact on religious/tribal differences. Nothing else seems to have much effect."

"I cant contemplate waging war in the altogether. Just look at the consternation it caused when the Canadian soldiers sent to Afghanistan showed up wearing the wrong colour uniforms. Imagine the reaction if theyd shown up wearing nothing at all. The taunts. The derision. This is my rifle, this is my gun. This ones for killin, this ones for fun."